Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Since they're going to beat gimmick PPVs into the ground anyway...

Why not a tag-team tournament every year? It puts the spotlight back on the tag titles and existing tag teams, and it also gives the writers lots of opportunities for wacky combinations where it actually has some consequence beyond a Raw or Smackdown match. Plenty of possibilities there. Maybe one guy in an established team decides to screw his partner and find a new one. Maybe there's a superstar nobody wants to team up with because he's a jerk. Maybe you do randomly selected teams to fill a couple of spots. It just seems more interesting than another PPV full of rehashed stuff from the last three weeks of TV.

I would lose my shit if they ever brought back the Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament, but I honestly don't think they'd have enough teams to fill out the field unless they used thrown-together singles guys. But holy shit, could you imagine a tournament with this field with say the winner declared tag champions, thus forcing Hell No to defend three times potentially:

The Shield v. Evolution (I was torn here but I think they'd do an angle where Brock apparently opts out of the tournament after one match because his contract doesn't stipulate working more than once, leaving Punk to get beat 3-on-1.)

Finals: Cena & The Rock v. The Shield (Team Crock continues their steamroll into the finals, while Brock returns for a brawl with HHH, sending the Shield onwards)

Winners and tag champions: The Shield (This way they get a big rub from beating the biggest stars and don't have to get beaten yet.)

This would be quite awesome, but as evidenced by the last few months, they've quickly forgotten about the tag division again. You have a very viable team in the PTP that were beaten by a man with his arm tied behind his back while his partner was blindfolded. When I saw that, I just laughed as today I read an interview by Jericho saying that HHH is basically the boss. Saying you care about tag teams and actually showing so by example are two very different things. Empty words so far...

You are misremembering: the point of Sheamus getting the crown was to set up his rematch against HHH, who has used a modified version of the king gimmick with his conan the barbarian rip-off costumes.....

No kidding....tournaments, 2/3 falls matches, iron man matches, gauntlet matches, Survivor Series-style elimination matches......not only would any of those matches fill a good chunk of time but it almost guarentees a great match

A "Battlebowl"-esque tournament, with teams composed of guys that are currently feuding, with the winning "team" being rewarded a shot at the WWE/World title. The idea would be that partners would have to set their differences aside, basically swallowing their pride to prove how much they want to be champion.

It hasn't been 50/50 booking, Bryan and Kane pretty much have beaten every other team. I'm not counting Shield since they're not officially a tag team and haven't expressed any desire for the tag titles.

I always thought a scepter as a trophy would be sufficient. The winner could carry it around for a while and not look like a complete tool, a la the MITB-briefcase. Would make for a good foreign object for a heel too. And they should've formalized the informal title-shot the winner occasionally received at SummerSlam. Making it the Royal Rumble to SummerSlam's Wrestlemania would've benefited both PPVs. Could've even closed the show with the tournament final every year, thereby elevating both finalists.

I dunno. King Booker was hilarious and it breathed fresh life into Booker's act, so much so that it got him a world title run. King Regal was short-lived due to his wellness violation but Regal was great, wearing a suit, just slumped in his throne looking like a vile wrestler version of Richard III.

I'm absolutely FLOORED that they haven't done an Iron Man Match since three-hour Raws were instated. I assumed that was one of the first things they'd do, just put on an Iron Man Match in hour one to not only pop a rating, but to give them a week off from having to script three hours. I'm not saying they should have done it every month, or even any more often than once every year or two, but it seemed like a no-brainer.

The problem with KOTR is that in its babyface-centric product, it doesn't do to have a tournament with its own gimmick designed for a heel to win. Although I see no reason why the King can't be a babyface.

Not that he should win it, but I could imagine, for instance, Good King Brodus. Or King Kofi Kingsto--wait a minute...

That said, personally, I'm over "Partners forced to team together against their will." Of course, I'd have taken Cena-Rock at SurSer '11 coming about as the result of the two being forced to team together, instead of "I'll team with this guy I hate because Twitter told me to."

Iron man matches don't pop ratings. People know the finish isn't coming for 60 minutes and tune out until 5 minutes before the end. That's the reason they stopped doing them after Brock-Angle and HHH-Benoit.

Why not make the tournament for a kayfabe money prize, too? I always remember when Yoko won the Rumble, they gave him an envelope that was supposedly his cheque for winning. That always seemed cool to me.

You could have the heels plotting and fighting for greed and the babyfaces fighting to, say, donate the cash to a worthy cause. A guy like John Cena could be wrestling for the Make-A-Wish Foundation or something. And when he wins, there could be a much-needed publicity boost.

It would definitely add some emotion to the tournament...although WWE would probably overkill it and make it TOO cheesy...

That's a Battle Royal in a cage but what I meant was Russo;s Reverse Battle Royal but you'd have to fight your way into the cage, not just the ring. I thought Russo's RBR was just into a ring but I don't follow TNA closely enough to know for sure.

I know that Zack Ryder would have a better chance of winning the WWE title, but a Champions League type tournament that lasted at least half of the year leading up to WM would be amazing. Round robin group stages, knockout rounds. I need to stop.

The only thing that ever bugged me about that was that he had the scepter with the jewel on the top for the longest time, but then all the sudden he's got one much better for smashing on someones head for the Rumble.

THREADJACK: Anyone else getting "attack site" warnings when trying to access 411? I've heard about people having problems in the past, but I've never actually received a warning about accessing the site before today.

I was in attendance of the HHH/Benoit match, and enjoyed the hell out of it. I also was in attendance for the Orton/Cena, and had a good time during it, as well. The trick is just to pace yourself, and not get too invested too quickly. Otherwise, you'll spend yourself way too early and then spend a good chunk of the time just waiting for the damn thing to end.

Unless it's the WM XII match... no amount of pacing oneself can prepare you for that snoozefest. Yeah, I said it.

I think with the right booking that the Lethal Lottery / Battlebowl would be a tremendous concept. WCW had the idea right I think -- the ads for it pumped it up pretty good too, but then almost none of the tag matches took advantage of the gimmick and the battle royal was booked as just another battle royal, without any emphasis on specific feuds until the end.

Yeah I'm getting it too. They've had occasional problems with this in the past as you said -- some of them legitimate attacks and some of them false positives, either reported erroneously or by users trying to hurt the site.

Yeah man I did my first one on maybe 5th grade and was absolutely still making them in the attitude era (at least as a 10th grader). I seeded out 1-16 and then bracket them on a manilla folder lol. I often had the :ndertaker make the finals and lose. And tbh I'm thinking about making one right now.

411 had an incident today where a hacker/third party got into the site and added in malicious code. We are working on fixing the issue and will update when everything has been fixed. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Speaking of tag teams, what are the odds of Cena and Rock winning the tag titles before Mania and holding them for a week or two. They seem to love doing that with Cena and his feuds. Every single time he's held the tag titles, it's been with a rival (Batista, Shawn Michaels, Miz, and Otunga).

The risk there is, if they write Cena to donate to X charity and he loses -- or worse, that it was just for kayfabe -- it's a pr headache in the making. It might be more elegant to say that WWE is matching the winner's choice of donations, but that several others have donated their purse money, etc.

Well, I mean, if Cena was to donate to a certain charity and promote it as such, they better sure as fuck book him to win! Although Cena losing and the heel rubbing it in sick kids' faces is a crazy old-school bad guy thing to do. You can always have Cena say he'll donate out of his own pocket and then going on to feud with said heel.

I'm sure there's a way to make it work. It kind of reminds me of when game shows have celebrity guests who play for certain charities, etc. I think some shows would donate money anyway.